Lightening Online

Aussie Home Loans have managed to convince one of their mortgage brokers that it would be a good idea to jump out of a plane as part of their latest marketting campaign.  Apparently it’s  a recreation of an ad that was made for Aussie Home Loans, only this time, no acting or stunt people involved.

This guy, Duane Brown, is apparently not real keen on heights (me either) OR flying (me either) so I’m not real sure how they convinced him that this would be a good idea!  I wonder how much they’re paying him?????

You can see more about what Duane has to say in the lead up to the jump on his You Tube page.

Anyway, this post is more about YOU than it is about HIM.

As part of this publicity stunt, Aussie Home Loans are giving away piles of cash.

You gotta be in it to win it peoples.

All you have to do is visit the Aussie Freefall Challenge site and pick some co-ordinates where you think Duane will land.

To make it more interesting, you can get bonus entries by finding hidden codes in various places.

One of the ways to find such codes is to follow Duane on Twitter.

And there is one hidden somewhere on LighteningOnline.com.  HINT: Go to the place where you can learn more about me. 

I think it would be really cool if a reader from this site won.  And since they’re not paying me to write this post, I’ll only charge you 10% of the winnings!  Well, how else am I ever going to make my BHAG????

There are some other bloggers involved in hiding codes on their blogs, so if you know of any (or are one), let me know as I’d love to add some links here to help people get as many entries as possible.

For an extra code, take a look around Servant of Chaos.

Remember a few weeks ago I mentioned a new website and magazine called Way2Go? At the time I said to stay tuned for another announcement. Well, the announcement is finally here (albeit a little later than we’d originally planned but here nonetheless).

Way2Go are running a special competition EXCLUSIVELY for Lightening Online readers. What that means is that you SHOULD enter because your chances of winning a prize are quite HIGH.

Prizes up for grabs are:

1. The five winning entrants will receive 1 x Rebel Sports voucher (valued at $100) and 1 x one year subscription to Way2Go magazine (valued at $35.70)
2. The ten second place entrants will receive 1 x one year subscription to Way2Go magazine

So, what do you have to do?

Simply sign up to the Way2Go website and use the code word “lighteningonline” in the section “Promotional Code”. Then submit your own travel story to the website. Winning stories will be selected by the Way2Go team (check out the Terms and Conditions for more details).

You can find my first article “A Dream Is Born” on the website which details a little of our background story to the Big Trip we’re taking this year. I hope you’ll pop over there and leave me a comment (make me feel loved) and then sign up and submit your own story. I know many of you have great travel stories just busting to be shared.

Competition closes at 9am on 3 March, 2009. Unfortunately, this time round, this competition is only open to Australian Residents (apologies to my international readers - you know I still love you *mwah*). You can view the full Terms and Conditions here.

I really hope you’ll take the time to support this competition as the more successful it is, the more likely we’ll be offered other exclusive giveaways in the future. The total prize pool is in excess of $1000 which is obviously something I couldn’t offer on my own. My thanks go to the Way2Go team and James at Zing for offering this competition to my blog readers.

Well, what are you waiting for? Get over there! Oh, and don’t forget to come back and let me know about your story so I can come and give you some comment love too!

I guess you can call 2 kittens that are from the same litter twins??? They’re nothing alike but you get that with twins don’t you? I always thought it would be nice to have twins.

Our kitten, Max went missing in October. I was too upset to blog about it. Plus I thought if I said he was gone then I was losing all hope that he might come back. He didn’t come back. I still miss him. As you do. When you love a pet.

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to get any more kittens. *sigh* I don’t need more sadness by getting attached to more pets.

But we have mice. And snakes. And cats are really a good pet to have on a farm for those 2 reasons. Plus they’re cute.

So we saw an advert giving away Ginger kittens. And I nagged Farmboy to ring until he got hold of them. We thought we’d just take one. But they said we could have two. And it’s nice for them to have some companionship. So we got two.

Silly little things they are.

This morning one of them got himself stuck between the glass door and the screen.

Aren’t they funny the things they’ll do and the places they get themselves stuck in?

So, now we’re going to have ourselves a little caption fun. You can come up with a caption for photo 1 OR photo 2. Or you can come up with a funny caption for both. Please leave your caption ideas in the comments section and indicate which photo it is a caption for.

Will there be a prize??? Indeed. Winners will receive one of these fantabulous, hot off the press, just arrived today, “Lightening - It’s Pink!!!” magnetic calendars.

These are a limited edition so make sure you get your entries in so you have a chance to snaffle one. Or get your entries in anyway so we can all have a giggle.

Winning entries (I haven’t decided how many there’ll be yet) will be published as part of my Smiley Saturday post this weekend.

So get those thinking caps on and see if you can come up with something to make us all smile.

Image via WikipediaToday (26th January) we are celebrating Australia Day. For those who aren’t real sure what Australia Day is all about, you might find the following links somewhat interesting/informative/enlightening:

About Australia Day

Australia Day History

The way I explained it to my children was that it was kind of a birthday celebration for Australia. It commemorates the arrival of white settlement here.

What do we do to celebrate? Not a lot really which sounds very unpatriotic doesn’t it. We had a chat with our children about it being Australia Day today and have decided to have snags and lamb chops on the barbie tonight as our “Australian” meal.

Most towns and cities put on breakfasts and presentation ceremonies. If we lived in town, I’d take our children. Distance makes it a little tricky right now.

So, what about Lightening Online? How are we celebrating Australia Day here?

I thought the best way to celebrate would be with a good old Aussie Bloggity Giveaway!!! I have not 1, not 2 but 3 very exciting prizes to giveaway…….. Okay, they may not be all that exciting…..but you can pretend just for a minute can’t ya????? For me?

Are you ready to hear all about these rather exciting prizes? You are? Well, read on……

3rd prize……

……is this great set of Aussie Flag stickers!!!! Show your patriotism (if you’re Australian) or show off to your friends (if you’re not Australian - you could make you friends jealous by pretending you’ve been here ).

2nd prize……..

……is a LOVELY pair of Aussie Flag SOCKS!!!! (Did I hear you say WOW!!!!!) Sssshhhhh…..don’t tell anyone they’re made in China!

And the BIGGEST and BEST 1st prize is………

……drumroll please……

………..an Aussie Flag Bandana!!!! You can’t get much more useful than that!!!!

Note that all these prizes feature our great Australian Flag!!!!

Okay, I know, they’re not the worlds greatest prizes but hey….free is free is free right?

So, now I have you all DYING to know how to win one of these fantastic great little giveaways…….let me tell you how you can do just that!

1. Leave a comment on this here post. That will get you 1 entry.

2. Post about this little competition on your blog OR via a forum or yahoo group somewhere (be sure to leave me a comment to let me know where you posted). That will get you 2 entries (yes, if you post about it on several forums you’ll get 2 entries for each one).
International visitors are ENCOURAGED to enter. That’s not to say all my lovely Aussie readers aren’t encouraged to enter too. I just know that I’m hesitant to enter some blog competitions if I *know* that person lives overseas because I’m not sure if they really want to post prizes overseas.

This competition closes Saturday 2nd February and winners will be announced on Monday 4th February.

Please help me spread the word my lovely internet friends. The more successful this little giveaway is, the more likely I’ll do more in the future!!!!

STOP PRESS: This Giveaway has GROWN!!!!! Marita has kindly offered to add 3 Australian Calendars to the Giveaway, making it a total of 6 PRIZES!!!! How cool is that? Thank you so much Marita. A comment on her post is also worth 1 entry so if you’d like to increase your chances, pop over there and leave her a comment. Actually, pop over there anyway cos she’s such a lovely thing and I’m sure would LOVE to have you visit.

On the subject of giveaways, Jenn (who’s blog was recently featured on this site) has a giveaway happening right now. Pop over and leave a comment on her “Giveaway” post to enter.

Jenn also makes mention of a bloggy giveaway carnival happening right now. So if you’re in the mood for more giveaways and contests you might enjoy checking out Bloggy Giveaways. I am number 457 so there sure are a LOT of giveaways on offer. Have fun!!!!

If you are interested in free online learning you’ll find it on the web. With a diversity of resources on all sorts of topics like maps of the world and arts and crafts movement, there’s almost nothing you can’t learn about. Come visit now and show off you new knowledge.